


the sly traveller, grudgingly cossetting

by bubblewrapstargirl



Series: the ridiculously romantic Rampod Redbolts au [15]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (though he would rather die than admit it), Angst with a Happy Ending, Codependency, Comfort Eating, Domeric Bolton Eats His Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Ramsay Bolton is a Good Bro, Ramsay and Dom are honestly sibling goals tho, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:40:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26405119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: Domeric Bolton takes to his bed in grief. (Which would be well and good, if it wasn't a bed inRamsay'skeep.)[03 Jan 2021- ON HIATUS: As you know, this world is kinda tearing at the seams and I just don't have enough time right now to give these stories what they deserve. Seemy profilefor more info/to contact me. I will not be replying to comments on fics until further notice.]
Relationships: Domeric Bolton & Ramsay Bolton, Ramsay Bolton/Podrick Payne
Series: the ridiculously romantic Rampod Redbolts au [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/938706
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	the sly traveller, grudgingly cossetting

Ramsay worried at the vulnerable dip in the small of Podrick’s back with vicious little teeth, tempered by affection. Pod gave appreciative breathy moans, that were barely audible over the howling storm drenching the castle. Winter had truly gone, and with the early spring came ferocious storms, with occasional blizzards: the famous spring snows. Soon the climate would settle into years of pleasant, balmy weather, with constant fruit, flourishing flowers and scented blossoms. The cherry grove which Ramsay had ordered planted in the godswood, specifically for Pod, was already budding, and would soon burst into bloom. All about the Redbolt, the forests were teeming with new life, while fresh grasses and flowering shrubs soothed the harsh jut of the cliff-faces to the west. These were calm, fatted days, bolstered by the rich foodstuffs available by the newly cleared passes to the south. And with serenity, came indulgence.

Ramsay was thoroughly occupied licking the salty sweat from the hot skin of his beloved. He might not have heard the disruptive knocking upon the door, had it not been for a brief respite from the gloomy groaning of the wind. Unfortunately, the fleeting lull enlightened them to the insistent sound. Ramsay was disaffected, continuing his amorous attentions unabated. Far more inclined to be civic-minded, Pod’s flush face popped up from amongst the pillows, and he looked to the latched door in concern.

“Ramsay,” he said firmly, “It must be an emergency.”  
  


“Part of the keep probably collapsed, from this fucking weather,” Ramsay said bluntly, with callous disregard for the damage and death such an instance might produce.

Pod’s unimpressed face turned toward him, serious and stern, despite his sweaty countenance and tussled hair. Cursing the gods, Ramsay heaved himself back onto his heels, then staggered ungracefully from the featherbed. Pod flopped back into the quilt and furs, disappointed despite himself. Outside, the wind regained its lungs, and screamed out its impotent fury.

Ramsay took an undignified gulp straight from a decanter of strongwine, before stomping toward the disruption. He approached the door after just barely dragging on unlaced breeches, only pausing to do so because the intrusion might be from his mother or his son, and neither of them he much desired be presented to, without raiment. Merik in particular had a habit of coming home without sending word, despite having settled permanently in the Dreadfort since his marriage.

Wrenching open the oaken door, Ramsay’s black scowl would have caused lesser men to piss themselves, and no doubt had, if it was met across the battlefield. The withered old maester cringed away from the look. He drew his hands toward his stomach in a protective manner, like a squirrel clutching a large acorn.

“Well?” Ramsay barked, furious at the slight hesitation.

Maester Niccos’ eyes flickered over Ramsay’s bared skin in uncomfortable surprise. His heaving chest, sweat-slick, and still well-defined with muscle, despite his advancing age, and the fresh scratches upon it, gave no denial as to what Ramsay had been lately engaged in. Pod’s naked form, indistinct due to the rumpled bedclothes, was clearly visible in the burnished light of the fireplace and lit sconces within. Clearly embarrassed, the Dornish maester wrung his hands, and finally opened his mouth to reveal something. Ramsay, ever impatient, beat him to it;

“Is there an army advancing, set to lay siege to the keep?” he snarled.

“N-no, no my lord,” the man stuttered, fear whitening his aged, bronze face. “Should we prepare for such? Has there been word from the King?”

“No, you fool,” Ramsay snapped, “I simply could not fathom anything else worth bothering me for, in the crack of the arse of nightfall!”

“Ramsay…” came Pod’s voice from within, gentle but quelling.

Ramsay heeded him with a grunt, and said no more. With a gulp the maester gathered his courage, and made another attempt.

“A rider has come, my lord,” he said, “Sodden and exhausted, through the east gate. I thought to offer him bread and salt, with a place to rest…”

“Why didn’t you?” Ramsay snapped, “Surely his news can wait until a respectable hour.”

“That was before I knew the identity of the rider, my lord,” said Maester Niccos, “It is your brother, Lord Domeric.”

Swift with fear, Ramsay apologised to Pod and bid him not to wait for his return, clothed himself more thoroughly, and ordered the King’s Chamber to be furnished; with lit fireplaces, fresh water, and the linens and tapestries quickly thrashed to clear them of dust. The aptly named rooms were reserved for guests of note. Thus far only King Robb, Domeric and Sansa Greyjoy, Dowager Queen of the Iron Islands, had ever slept there. It was decorated lavishly; there were tapestries threaded with real gold and silver, a silver bowl to daily clean oneself, a bronze bath with taloned feet from Myr, large chests adorned with intricate carvings of Northern folk tales and songs, and a enormous rug made from the entire skinned fur of a snowbear, with head and feet still attached. The bearskin had been a gift from Jon Targaryen, who many still whispered was the rightful King of the Southron Kingdoms.

It was a decadent room, almost garishly so, with ornate candlesticks, finely woven cushions on the elegant chairs, and fireplaces carved with vicious bird motifs (these at Merik’s insistence). If one looked closely, they would realise the birds were not carrying fruit morsels or pecking at tree trunks. Each stone bird was instead tearing at some delicate form of human flesh; eyeballs, toes, noses, ears and fingertips. Pod found it repulsively foul, and refused to allow the same style of decoration to be chiselled in their own grand chambers. Their main fireplace also had a woodland theme; two great oak trees meeting and intertwining at the mantel. There were only three creatures featured; a shrewd squirrel, hoarding nuts for winter, a little snow shrike, strong despite its small size, and a hunting hound, perked up as if catching the scent of prey. A straightforward symbology, if one knew the character of the three Redbolts that inhabited the keep when it was completed.

Long before Ramsay had held that name, and begun weaving myths about the character of those in his House, he had been tied to House Bolton. More through his brother Domeric, than the father who had given him a claim to noble blood. It was an arresting shock to see Dom now, diminished from the titan of Ramsay’s boyhood. He sat crumpled and damp, swaying in a chair at a lower table in the grand hall that was used for feast days, and the occasional petition from Ramsay’s vassal lords. Ramsay charged into the dimly lit room. Worry hastened his tread, but he stopped short at the sight of Dom so crumpled.

His elder brother had always been admirable. Not quite the shining knight of Southron song, chivalrous and almost benign, for he was ever too much a Bolton for that. But there was a kind of innate honour in Domeric, though a very Northern honour, to hearth and home, that Ramsay himself never grew. Dom was something betwixt brother and father to Ramsay, having taken charge of him from a young age. Dom was responsible for his education, much of his elevated position in life, and his ability to love. Had Ramsay not bonded with him fiercely from too small an age to recall, he might never have known there was a strength to be found in attachment with others, though it made you vulnerable. Ramsay was not skilled at it. But Ramsay had managed to form genuine connection with a choice collection of folk, which stopped him from entirely descending into hedonistic, unchecked bloodlust as he matured.

Dom had held Ramsay’s heart in his fist his entire life; seldom others had wormed their way between his fingers to suck up a little blood for themselves. It had never occurred to Ramsay that someday his brother might die. That there might come a time when the person who knew him best (for Dom had witnessed almost every moment that moulded Ramsay into a bestial creature) might cease to exist, and leave him bereft. There were very few instances that Ramsay could recall Dom ever being sick. But he looked so now, sallow-skinned and thin, as though he had ridden from the Dreadfort to the Redbolt without stopping for food or rest.

Ramsay crossed the room on feet that commanded him, rather than the reverse, and found himself crouching beside Domeric’s sad, slightly swaying from. His brother was clutching a decanter of wine to his chest rather pathetically. His eyes were unfocused enough to suggest he was already well-soused. It was a wonder that Dom had been able to ride in such conditions. It a testament to his skill on horseback, if indeed he had been drunk while riding. Ramsay was shocked, and steadily ever more furious at the thought of such reckless action. Dom might have fallen and broken his neck.

“Why did you ride though such a storm?” Ramsay whispered, an uncomfortable, unfamiliar unease burbling in his stomach. “Anyone might sicken and die from such a thing. You’ll have a chill indeed, if you don’t get out of those wet clothes.”

Dom didn’t appear to hear him. He continued to stare across the room, in that disturbingly vacant way. He took a large, unseemly gulp directly from the wine gripped in his hands, chugging it sloppily so that two thick red streams poured down from either side of his mouth. Ramsay winced at this indication of unbecoming, unusual mood for his dignified brother. Finally, Domeric consented to speak.

“My aunt, the formidable Barbrey Dustin, born of House Ryswell… is dead.”

Ramsay sucked in a breath through his teeth, surprised at the hurt that punched through him. He hadn’t grieved at the loss of their father. Mostly, it had been a detached sort of acknowledgement that the old fuck was dead, and a slight lament that Ramsay had not been the one to make it so. But Barbrey had been a staunch supporter of Domeric and Ramsay in their every endeavour. Ramsay had admired her fortitude and clarity of purpose.

“You didn’t even tell me she was sick,” he said, unable to keep the accusation out of his tone.

Dom blinked, finally seeming to focus his eyes upon Ramsay’s face.

“She’s been declining for many years; you knew this.”

Ramsay grunted, but acceded the point, then he muttered, “That she was worsening, then.”

The tapestries barely visible on the far wall suddenly became arresting, and Dom avoided his gaze again. Ramsay successfully fought the urge to reach up and pinch his ear, as though Dom was his namesake, Ramsay’s own son Merik, who in truth had seldom earned such treatment.

“She didn’t want a fuss,” Dom said at length, “You know how stubborn she was. It would have been a humiliation, to be surrounded by weeping relatives, and covetous kin hoping she might bequeath them something of value.”

Ramsay said nothing, picturing Dom’s rigid aunt, determined to go to her death with as much peace and quiet as possible. It seemed very apt for her. She was never a woman to tolerate frippery, ostentation or idiocy. She would consider a vigil at her bedside a waste of her kin’s time, when they should be conducting their own affairs, elsewhere.

“I think she only wanted me there to confess in person,” Dom continued blithely, “Her sister-son a less condemnatory option, than one of her remaining brothers.”

“Confess what?” said Ramsay intrigued despite his growing concern for Dom’s lulled state.

He reached up to trace a hand across Dom’s clammy brow. Limp curls whispered at his fingers as he did so, but Dom did not stir from his slump.

“Her bastard,” he said shortly, before taking another large drink.

“Her what?” said Ramsay, aghast.

“Quite the fashion for every Northern house, it seems,” Dom said with a hiccup, “Maybe I should have had a couple. I was always quite satisfied with my marriage bed, however.”

Ramsay waved away this inconsequential aside, knowing Dom had no true regrets on that front. Dom was too honourable to sire bastards; the Vale had gifted him that much.

“She gave me her locket,” Dom said, reaching up to his neck to tug soullessly on the chain that rested there.

Now aware of it, Ramsay could plainly see that it was the familiar token that always hung about their aunt’s neck. He couldn’t bring himself to dwell on each revelation Dom was peppering him with, like crossbow bolts hitting mark after mark. They stung, but Ramsay wasn’t yet ready to poke at them and pull out all the finer details, lest they spurt blood.

“There’s a lock of the girl’s hair in there,” Dom continued, “Barbrey kept her in the household for a time, with vague plans to wed her to some low lord or third son, I suppose. But the girl scuppered her plans by wedding a carpenter for love. They moved to the Riverlands, sometime after the war. Barbrey tasked me with finding the girl. Giving her the locket, and some other belongings.”

“Too fine for a carpenter’s wife, no doubt,” said Ramsay with a sigh, “But we are all fools for the good of our children.”

Dom hummed in response, his hands going slack about the large jug that was in his grip. Ramsay carefully eased it free, and set it upon the table. He was still crouched low beside his brother, and now he moved to rest on his knees, though they protested the cold stone floor. On the one hand the entire exchange seemed like an absurd dream; that Dom could have ridden hard from Barrowton without retinue, during a storm of such magnitude. Yet, by the other hand, it felt as though they were the only two people in the whole world, and the night might be content to keep them as such, and the sun not dare to break into their solitude with streaks of warm light. That they might be encased in the hust of dark together, as they had ever been.

“Father. Wylla. Aunt Barbrey,” Dom listed the dead sorrowfully, “All that remains is a heapful of useless uncles... and daughters that no longer have need of me. You are all I have left, and you need me even less.”

Ramsay gaped at him, appalled.

“I will always have need of you,” he said insistently, taking mastery of Dom’s right wrist and giving it a hearty shake, to gain more acute attention.

Dom ignored him, busy wallowing in his drunken miseries.

“I thought I might not survive the loneliness, once Wylla passed,” he revealed suddenly, “But I had Rose nearby, and the little one. My first grandson. Then I thought I might take another wife… but saw no true reason. Perhaps that was a mistake. A devoted wife, to tend me in my dotage, might be just what I need.”

“You speak as though you were an old greybeard,” Ramsay scolded, “When you are nothing of the sort.”

“I feel as though I am, in my bones,” said Domeric, “Too old to be chasing after the follies of my relations. I should be installed beside the fire, with a thick blanket about my knees. I’d be content to while the remainder of my days as such, bothered by little, save the length of time until my next meal… increasingly I feel the gods made a mistake, letting me live out so many winters. I should have died on the field of battle. Cloaked in glory, with a sword in my hand.”

“Horseshit,” said Ramsay firmly, with all the rigid insistence of a little brother, “Enough of this. Too much wine makes you melancholy. All will be brighter on the morrow.”

Dom tipped forward dangerously. Ramsay hurriedly reached up, to catch hold of him about the top of each arm, convinced that Dom was about to slump to the flagstones in a drunken stupor. But his elder brother merely sighed, then gently knocked their foreheads together. They remained settled against one another intimately, breathing the same wine-sweetened air. It was difficult to make out his brother’s expression with such closeness. But Dom seemed to relax when Ramsay’s hands fluttered up, to rest carefully on each side of his face.

“We should have been twins,” Domeric proclaimed softly, “You are the other half of my soul.”

Ramsay hummed his assent. Then he gently tilted his head upward to close the distance between them. He joined their lips in a brief, chaste kiss, as they had not shared since he was a boy.

“I know it,” said Ramsay quietly; then he took his brother by the hand and led him to the warm, freshly-prepared bedchamber, fitted for a king.


End file.
